"The Village Book is a collection of 55 stories illustrating ‘The Spirit of the Village in Winter and Spring’ and ‘Air and Light of the Fields and the Sea in Winter and Spring’; they cover the period 1921–1929 (the period that HW had actually lived in Georgeham). Note, however, that this does not mean the book took nine years to actually write, as many reviewers seemed to think.

Although HW states in his dedicatory preface that this is an imaginative work which should not be read as the history of any particular village or its inhabitants, it would have been very obvious right from the start to anyone familiar with HW’s life and work that these stories present a picture of the village of Georgeham, with its two village inns – ‘The Lower House’ and ‘The Upper House’ – and the inhabitants thereof. The interwoven second theme takes the reader out into the surrounding countryside, mainly the nearby cliffs and sand-dunes within easy walking distance from the village, and notably the steep and dangerous precipices of Baggy Point and Morte Point." (The Henry Williamson Society)